The services were planned to be a few hundred yards further up the M1: on the other side of the footbridge you can see ghost slips and land shaped for a normal straight four-sliproad service area. This was built with the M1, which had additional sites for services identified and held in reverse.

In the 1990s, the government were no longer responsible for identifying the sites of new services, but several developers took an interest in it. Firstly, in 1995, Welcome Break worked on new plans for a service area here. They had to hold back as the Highways Agency were considering dropping plans to widen and realign the M1 which would have affected the position of the services.

After this, a company calling themselves 'South East Oil Co.' (probably acting on behalf of a larger operator) were granted planning permission for a service area here. They would have had a small, L-shaped amenity building with a tall, glass roofed atrium in the corner of the L. They called it 'Sherwood Parc services'. Their plans had a lodge, shop, fast food unit and toilets and restaurant seating at each end.

This didn't happen, and Roadchef and Extra showed an interest and eventually pushed through with a revised plan to become operator and forecourt operator respectively.

All of these plans spilled over into surrounding fields, meaning the original slip roads remained unused.